YouTube Hit by 'Porn Day' Vid Barrage

Prank could be problem for adult industry

SAN BRUNO, Calif. - In case you missed it, Wednesday, May 20 was "Porn Day." Though of course, every day is porn day in the adult business. But two mainstream websites "celebrated" by hitting YouTube with a barrage of porn clips.

A group of users on image-based message board 4chan and multi-media content site eBaum's World staged the "porn day" prank and YouTube has been cleaning up the mess, though it seems some images still come up in searches, despite the actual videos being yanked.

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The uploads actually began on Tuesday afternoon, according to ArsTechnica. Many of the uploaded clips appeared legitimate at first, starting with non-porn content, such as news or an interview.

"It may take some time for video search results and thumbnail images to disappear from the site," Google spokesperson Scott Rubin told Ars, adding the takedowns would be finished within a couple of days.

The adult clips were uploaded without any warnings on them that they contained adult content, which is certainly not funny in the least to parents whose children might frequent YouTube as well as those simply not interested in porn viewing at all and no desire to stumble upon it.

Additionally, because the thumbnails in searches were still appearing as of Thursday morning, it was a cause for concern among parents in particular, considering some of the search tags included kid topics or heroes like the Jonas Brothers.

Another problem is such a reckless stunt can only reflect poorly on adult companies and the industry, which could be blamed, though the prank came out of the mainstream. This could undermine responsible industry efforts in conjunction with child-protection groups such as the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection.

“It is upsetting when someone from outside the industry thinks it’s funny to expose everyone to content that is inappropriate for minors and to others who chose not to see. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was done by an anti-adult entertainment group just to discredit the adult industry which only produces content for and by adults,” ASACP CEO Joan Irvine told AVN.com. “Many of the industry leaders support ASACP’s online child protection efforts as members and sponsors and over 2.2 million sites are labeled with the Restricted to Adults – RTA Website Label in order to help parents who use parental control systems.”